command of the picket boat line until 6 April 1864, when he took command of the monitor . On 14 May 1864, he was detached from the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and ordered north, and on 26 September 1864 he reported aboard the monitor under the command of Commodore John Rodgers. Dictator cruised off the United States East Coast from December 1864 through the end of Civil War in April 1865 and until decommissioning on 5 September 1865. Post-Civil War On 5 September 1865, Bunce took command of the monitor . He commanded her during her voyage from Philadelphia around Cape Horn to San Francisco, the first extended sea voyage ever made by a monitor. This impressive achievement earned him the thanks of the Department of the Navy upon the recommendation of Commodore Rodgers, and the United States Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, in turn recommended him for reward to President Andrew Johnson. After service at the Boston Navy Yard in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from 1866 to 1869, Bunce reported back aboard Dictator in April 1869 to fit her for sea service. With this completed, he detached from Dictator on 4 October 1869 and on 12 November 1869 took command of the newly commissioned North Atlantic Squadron screw steamer , stationed at Samaná Bay, Santo Domingo. He detached from her on 20 July 1870, and then had special ordnance duty at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was promoted to commander on 7 November 1871. In 1873 he took command of the gunboat in the Asiatic Squadron. He reported to the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., in June 1875, but was detached for lighthouse duty from July to October 1875. He returned to the Washington Navy Yard in 1877, then served at the Torpedo School at Newport, Rhode Island, from 7 January 1879 to 29 July 1881. Bunce returned to sea in 1881 as commanding officer of the sloop-of-war . From 1882 to 1885, he commanded USS Wabash, which by then served as a receiving ship at the Boston Navy Yard. While aboard Wabash, he received a promotion to captain on 11 January 1883. After service as the Senior Member of the Board on Timber Preservation for Naval Purposes, he became the first commanding officer of the new protected cruiser on 1 June 1886, just a few weeks prior to her commissioning on 19 July 1886. He remained in command of Atlanta